Best Honey

[Jagungal]

I have made a honey ale and had a great time designing and tweaking the recipe in software.

It seemed come out perfect except for one thing. When bottling today it just does not seem to have a prominent honey flavour - one could even say that it is a normal ale. I used 1kg of a standard honey.

Next time (next week) I am going to try a lager and I am wondering if any honeys are better than others for giving an enhanced honey flavour. I will try one of the specialist ones but was wondering if anyone has experience with a particular type that might give a unique flavour.

 

[matti]

I did a Honey bitter last year and the boil or/and ferment generally kill the most honeyaroam off very quickly. You may prime with Honey in Wheat beer or pale ale and pseudo lagers with only little malty aroam. Had a bitter and added 1kg honey approx and did prime with honey as well nice mouth feel using saflager yeast.
Hop and dark malt clash with honey. Primed my trad bitter with Honey as an experiment. Yet to turn any good 4 weeks later. Have yet to add honey into primary or secondary but that would be the go to maintain good flavour. Honey essence is really the go as you don't need to treat the honey for any wild yeasties and can add it straight to secondary.

 

[pint of lager]

The honeys that I have seen mentioned as the best for adding to beers are orange blossom or Paterson's curse. All my honeys end up in meads rather than beers.

If you have added some sort of generic blended honey, it will have very little character to contribute to the beer.

Many people like to add honey to secondary, as the more active primary ferment can scrub the delicate honey flavours from the beer.

Never seen honey essence.

 

[peas_and_corn]

I make my honey beer as a wheat beer base with 1kg of honey. I put it in at the beginning of the boil and haven't tasted much of a drop in honey flavour.

I use bilo honey; no problems here.

Just make sure you use honey that's been processed as wild pollens and yeasts that are in natural honey could do some nasty stuff to your beer.

 

[normell]

Clover or Orange Blossom are the best I have used, Try not to use any eucalyptus strains.
Only done in secondary for me.

 

[mika]

I added 1kg of honey(generic) to the secondary of a wheat beer. 4wks on the honey is very subtle, but you can taste it.
I never boiled it or anything like that, so will be interesting to see if it lasts or gets some nasty infection like everyone fears.

Where do you go for the specialist sytles of honey ?? Never seen anything but plain ol' honey at the supermarket

 

[Screwtop]

Out of two attempts I found the best result was obtained using honey as a replacement for priming sugar. Add a little water, heat and hold at 70 - 75 Deg C for 45 min. Alternatively place in a double boiler and just heat the honey (no added water). Add when cooled to wort temp. Works best with low BU beers and with beers having high aroma hop additions. Seems to work best as an aroma adjunct as boiling, fermentation, hop additions and cold serving temps are all negatives in preserving honey flavour.

 

[Airgead]

week) I am going to try a lager and I am wondering if any honeys are better than others for giving an enhanced honey flavour. I will try one of the specialist ones but was wondering if anyone has experience with a particular type that might give a unique flavour.

[post="129856"][/post]​

Jagungal

In gereral the darker the honey the stronger the flavour (and the longer it takes to mature). My standards are white or box and ironbark. Both are fairly dark (ironbark is darker) and go really well in a braggot. For a light lager I would go for a lighter style as the darker ones may be overpowering. The box honeys would be about the darkest I would use in a lager.

Generic blended honey has no taste at all so stay away from that.

I usually add honey in the primary or sometimes in the secondary. If you add it to the boil add it 5 mins from the end or you will drive off all the aromatics.

Cheers
Dave

 

[James Squire]

Clover honey, the white stuff in the supermarkets. Think its all from NZ.

Add late to the boil. The stuff tastes grouse in a wheatie!

JS

 

[Jagungal]

So far ... from the suggestions given ...

I am going to a lager .. to reduce some of the overpowering flavour of an ale.

Drop the IBU's as some suggested the ale was about 35-40, I will aim for around 30-35 on this one.

Maybe use more of a fruitier hop .. for the Ale I used POR and Cluster. Will think about this one.

Use something like Clover, Orange blossom, or Patterson's Curse. Look for honeys that might be dark for that extra flavour. They sell local farm honey here in bulk, I might investigate that. Other than that I saw it cheap in Aldis last time I was in Canberra, still more expensive that the blended honey.

Add the honey to the second half of the fermentation. I hadn't heard of this one before but will give it a go. I am thinking a week of normal ferment, then add the honey at the start of the second week, give it a week more .. then it gets racked and goes out to the garage for a month of lagering. I sometimes rack during lagering if the yeast seems to build up in the lagering demijohn.

Adding to the secondary is an interesting suggestion though, because I could detect far more honey flavour in the initial wort and half way though the ferment when checking gravity. It seems to have diminished at some time during the latter stages of the ferment.

Use honey as a primer ... trying to find the most aromatic one I can.

Boil the honey but only do it for a quick boil so as not to drive off aroma. I boiled the last lot for maybe 20 mins which might have been a mistake.

Thanks heaps for all the advice. I will let you know the results in a couple of months..

 

[Mr Bond]

Citrus/orange blossom is perfect for a wheaty or blonde.

 

[barls]

strawberry clover honey was the best i found, other than that clover and white box

 

[TasChris]

Just a chance to flog a Tasmanian honey, Leatherwood honey is probably Australia's best honey it has a unique floral flavour and strong aroma, well worth a try.
As a rule the lighter the colour the more delicate the flavour and the more costly. ie eucalypt based honey is darkest in colour and strongest in flavour but is often cut down with lighter more subtle honeys

 

[facter]

i'll throw my weight behind the leatherwood ...

But only for dark ales, and you dont want to use too much - it went very well in an Old Ale that I did, but the flavour is extremely strong and very distinctive - which is why you wouldnt want it in anything lighter


But yeh, its a great honey.

Its toob ad, but you cant get any form of clover honey anywhere here in WA - there is only eucalyptus, which is a shame as oftentimes it also has a fairly strong boquet to it - ive done a pretty exhaustive search for clover honey through many shops, health shops and places and no one seems to stock any anywhere.